The moon hung low over the Nasarik estate, pale light spilling across the marble courtyards and gardens like liquid silver. The banners for tomorrow's Gathering swayed quietly in the wind.
Everyone slept.
The halls were still.
Except for one.
Down in the empty training ground, Eryndor sat cross-legged at the center of a cracked marble circle. His coat lay folded beside him, his breath calm, steady, deliberate. The air shimmered faintly around him — a soft vibration like the hum before thunder.
He closed his eyes.
In a whisper that barely left his lips, he said,
"Astral Sky… open."
And the world around him dissolved.
The silence of the Astral Sky greeted him — that vast horizon of light and storm, where the ground was made of clouds and the air felt weightless. Above, endless lightning crawled through an ocean of white-blue mist. Beneath, faint echoes of the real world rippled like reflections in glass.
Eryndor stood.
The wind here always responded to thought, and tonight it coiled gently around his ankles like a living thing.
He rolled his shoulders once, exhaled, and moved into stance — feet apart, hands loose, elbows guarding his center. The stance his grandfather taught him in faded dreams. The foundation of the Eightfold Flow.
He began his routine slowly — not to fight, but to remember.
"Seven months… and I can finally feel it."
His hands shifted through the air, tracing invisible lines. The wind caught on each movement, outlining his technique like brushstrokes of light.
"The thirty-two forms — the foundation of the Stormblood. The ones I lost when I was reborn… and now, they're back."
His foot swept low — Form One: Crescent Step, the base movement that let him cut angles faster than sight.
He pivoted — Form Two: Twin Vein Pulse, channeling mana evenly through both arms, the first lesson of flow control.
His hands struck out — Form Three: Surge Palm, the same shockwave technique he'd used against Luthien.
A short inhale, and his body followed through — Form Four: Static Guard, a defensive counter that redirected impact with lightning reinforcement.
Each motion flowed into the next — a seamless rhythm.
He didn't stop.
"Form Five… Gale Fang. Form Six… Arc Twist."
He rotated midair, a streak of light across the silver mist, landing in a low stance, one palm open.
"Form Seven… Rolling Flash."
The air cracked as electricity bloomed around him.
One by one, the original thirty-two forms resurfaced in his body — each etched deeper than memory. He could feel the years of refinement, the ghosts of his grandfather's corrections, the precision his father had once shown before his fall.
They weren't just attacks.
They were philosophy.
The Eightfold Flow was about harmony — how motion, will, and element intertwined. The thirty-two techniques were its expression.
"The first sixteen… are physical flow."
He demonstrated — rapid, crisp combinations of punches, sweeps, and spinning kicks, each ending with a flare of pressure that left shallow grooves in the sky beneath him.
"The next eight… are integration."
Lightning and wind intertwined — his movements began to hum with resonance, every step leaving arcs that cut across the horizon. He flowed seamlessly from Tempest Coil into Skyveil Mirage, from Wind Gate into Heaven's Silence, each blending body and mana.
"And the last eight…"
He exhaled. The world trembled.
"…are transcendence."
The air went still.
His next strike shattered the horizon like glass.
The Astral Sky rippled outward, layers of light folding over each other as if the dimension itself was trying to contain his form.
"Form Twenty-Five — Starbreaker."
A single punch that tore a hole through the clouds, light bleeding from the impact.
"Form Twenty-Six — Chainlight Waltz."
Multiple afterimages of himself spiraling in a circle of lightning, converging in a strike that left a perfect sphere of vacuum in its wake.
"Form Twenty-Seven — Calm Void."
A step — and every particle of energy in the air froze. The silence that followed was absolute, his aura condensed so tightly that it distorted reality itself.
Then came the final ones — the Lost Techniques, those that only the awakened Stormblood could access.
"Form Twenty-Eight — Heaven's Descent."
"Form Twenty-Nine — Tempest Core."
"Form Thirty — Sundering Sky."
"Form Thirty-One — Zero Horizon."
"Form Thirty-Two…"
He paused, his voice softer now.
"Rai no Jinsei — The Life of Thunder."
He dropped into stance. Lightning crawled across his arms like veins of molten glass. The air hummed as if the entire realm was holding its breath.
Then — movement.
A blur. A storm.
The world erupted.
Each strike painted streaks of light across the horizon, carving arcs of blue and white flame into the sky. Every blow fused lightning and wind into something alive — something that moved with rhythm, not rage.
When he stopped, silence filled the void again.
He stood still, breathing slowly, sweat running down his neck — though there was no real body here. Only will, and the reflection of his soul.
"The Astral Sky," he murmured, "isn't just a place to train. It's a mirror of potential. If I can control power here, I can control it anywhere."
The clouds parted slightly, revealing the faint shimmer of a constellation — his constellation — a mark that only appeared since his Bloodline Awakening.
"Stormblood."
He looked up, feeling its rhythm echo in his chest — not a heartbeat, but a storm pulse. His bloodline had fused his affinities into something unique: lightning that flowed like wind, wind that struck like lightning.
A paradox that shouldn't exist — yet did.
He moved again, this time slower, almost like a dance. His thoughts drifted as he practiced — cataloguing the other techniques he had created since awakening:
Heaven's Silence — movement so refined it erased its own sound.
Null — compression of lightning and air to nullify impact.
Storm Veil — a passive barrier woven from his aura, bending attacks away rather than blocking them.
Raijin Pulse — channeling condensed mana through the heart to amplify reaction speed beyond thought.
Tranquil Flow — his Astral form of meditation, where he could move and think at once, fusing calm and chaos.
And the newest… born only days ago.
"Astral Resonance."
He formed the stance, inhaled slowly, and exhaled — his body blurred, multiple versions of himself appearing like reflections in rippling water. Each moved slightly differently — representing fragments of his consciousness trained in parallel.
He had learned to use the Astral Sky as an accelerator — what felt like hours here were mere minutes outside, and now he could train every version of himself simultaneously.
"One mind, eight reflections."
It was how he reached mastery of the thirty-two forms in only months.
He closed his eyes. His thoughts quieted.
"From the first Crescent Step to the final Life of Thunder… all of them, mine again."
A soft wind stirred the realm. Lightning hummed faintly in response — not destructive, not violent. It pulsed like a heartbeat.
Eryndor straightened, gazing across the silver horizon.
"Tomorrow…" he said quietly, "the Gathering begins. But it's not just the family that'll be watching."
His reflection shimmered in the mist — for a second, he thought he saw the faint outline of his grandfather's silhouette, arms folded, smiling faintly.
"You've done well, boy," the echo whispered.
He didn't reply — only bowed his head slightly.
Lightning flickered once, bright and soft.
"I'll carry it forward," he murmured. "Your legacy… our storm."
He turned his palm upward. The lightning curled into a small sphere — perfectly stable, perfectly silent.
In that tiny sphere was everything:
His wind. His lightning. His bloodline. His art.
He clenched his fist, and the light dispersed.
The Astral Sky began to fade, the horizon dissolving into silver mist.
As he opened his eyes again, the real world returned — the training ground, the stillness, the moon above.
The air around him shimmered faintly with blue-white aura.
He stood, brushing dust from his palms, eyes glowing softly with calm power.
He whispered into the wind,
"I'm ready."
Far away, beyond the horizon, a ripple spread through reality itself — faint, but deep.
In a distant citadel of obsidian stone, Valen Nasarik opened his eyes, a thin smile on his lips.
"He's stabilized."
The air trembled around him.
"Good. Then the Gathering will be worth attending."